# How many spaces after a period?



## Geek (May 13, 2010)

How many spaces do _you_ put after a period? I was always told to put two, and that's what I learned in typing class but my son is being taught in school to put only one space when typing on a computer. I looked it up and apparently the two space thing was the norm when we all typed on typewriters and the norm for typing on a computer is indeed just one, but they say one or two is fine regardless.

However since all the cool kids just use 1 space, I refuse to change...


----------



## StereoXGirl (May 13, 2010)

I've always typed two spaces. It's the way I was taught, and I'm sticking with it! lol.


----------



## Karren (May 13, 2010)

Yeah! Two..


----------



## emily_3383 (May 13, 2010)

2.


----------



## divadoll (May 13, 2010)

Grade 9 typing class said 2


----------



## Lucy (May 13, 2010)

one. always one. i've never been taught to type, only to write, and in writing you only use one!


----------



## bCreative (May 13, 2010)

Just one


----------



## Nick007 (May 13, 2010)

2 and thanks for fixing my account!!


----------



## xjackie83 (May 13, 2010)

I always use two.


----------



## Aprill (May 13, 2010)

I was taught 2


----------



## ~Angela~ (May 13, 2010)

I was taught 2...

But I only use 1... it's easier!


----------



## sooperficial (May 13, 2010)

I always do 2 spaces. On my iPhone when I end a sentence I just type in two spaces and it automatically produces a period. It looks cleaner IMO.


----------



## internetchick (May 13, 2010)

Just one. It used to be two, but now that standard is one.


----------



## bCreative (May 13, 2010)

I don't see how you guys can do two, that just seems like too much space for me.


----------



## Johnnie (May 13, 2010)

Never even heard of 2, I use 1.


----------



## Orangeeyecrayon (May 13, 2010)

I use two, it is what they taught us in elementary school. something about only 1 space makes me think it would be harder to read


----------



## Thugluvgrl187 (May 13, 2010)

In school I was taught to do 2 but online I ususally one use 1.


----------



## akathegnat (May 13, 2010)

Two


----------



## equus18 (May 13, 2010)

Double spaces is the proper way but when I text message I use single because of space constraints.


----------



## reesesilverstar (May 13, 2010)

I was taught 2. Even tho I put only 1 now.


----------



## season (May 14, 2010)

for official documents and papers, i always do 2. but on here it's whatever. sometimes 1. sometimes 2.


----------



## esha (May 14, 2010)

Early elementary school they taught us to use 2 spaces (on those super old Macs) but once we started using those typing programs, we learned that there should only be 1 space after the period.


----------



## Darla (May 14, 2010)

Its always been two.


----------



## perlanga (May 17, 2010)

My computer does one by default. I always thought it was one. Two seems awkward and takes up too much space.


----------



## divadoll (May 17, 2010)

Apparently, the Modern Language Assoc says it's 1 because of the proprotional fonts.

How many spaces should I leave after a period or other concluding mark of punctuation?

Here's from a different site:

How many spaces after a period? One or two? 

As for established styles, Modern Language Association (MLA) goes with the single space as a preference, but leaves the door open to say that there is nothing wrong with using two spaces after ending punctuation marks unless an instructor or editor states a preference one way or another. In this case, it’s best to consider the directions of the person assigning the grade or signing the paycheck.

Wikipedia even chimes in with a little information:

The two spaces convention was brought out by the use of monospaced font on typewriters, and carried on solely by tradition. Most fonts used in word processors since the mid-1990’s have the correct spacing already adjusted, rendering the traditional double space after a full stop (period) obsolete.

This is all shocking to me. I'll have to remember that the next time I write a letter.


----------



## kayleigh83 (May 29, 2010)

Always one! I've never even heard of doing two spaces after puncuation in my life!


----------



## eightthirty (May 29, 2010)

I've always used two unless I'm in desperate need of room on a text or Twitter!


----------



## speerrituall1 (May 31, 2010)

two


----------



## CoganKnowsBest (May 31, 2010)

I only have to put one space in my assignments for Uni English...


----------



## jayleelah (Jun 2, 2010)

it used to be two spaces but they changed it like ten years ago so now it's only one space.


----------



## tianyaguke (Jun 2, 2010)

just so so


----------



## Adrienne (Jun 2, 2010)

I was taught that two spaces was correct all through high school. Although unless I have something to turn in, it varies.

Originally Posted by *divadoll* /img/forum/go_quote.gif As for established styles, Modern Language Association (MLA) goes with the single space as a preference, but leaves the door open to say that there is nothing wrong with using two spaces after ending punctuation marks unless an instructor or editor states a preference one way or another. In this case, itâ€™s best to consider the directions of the person assigning the grade or signing the paycheck. Yep, I always go by what the teacher wants. Heck, if he wants three spaces then it'll have three spaces lol. 
This reminds me alot of the comma before "and." I remember in elementary we were told to write: The dog, cat and fish. Now it has to be written: The dog, cat, and fish.


----------



## Annelle (Jun 2, 2010)

I remember MLA format always being our English Bible.

Back when I was in school, MLA style was basically

2 spaces after periods and colons (where it's just a dot), 1 space after commas and semi-colons (where it's a dot and a tail). This was to differentiate them on typewritten font and make them easier to distinguish.

With computers and the internet being so prevalent, written works aren't seen nearly as much, and different styled fonts are all over the place. For internet usage, one space is preferred since space on a computer screen is a limited commodity. (With papers, you can always add pages, so a few extra spaces on a single page doesn't make a difference. But online, there's only a limited amount of space on the screen before you have to scroll, and quite honestly a lot of people don't read what they don't NEED to read online, so if they need to scroll, a lot of people will go to another website if they don't feel that more information is really necessary. Similar to newspapers, you'll read the partial story on the front page, but a lot of people won't finish the story somewhere on page E-13. ...But newspapers use multi-columned justified spacing, so they don't necessarily follow the 1-2 space rule, either.)

There's a bunch of studies and theories on how people read and what will make them read more. I'm not sure if the reasons I stated above were necessarily the reasons why the rules changed, but they do support the change.

Adrienne, funny you should say that, when I took my typewriter keyboarding class (ugh I'm old) 3 spaces was occasionally necessary. When you're trying to make something stand out, you'd add spaces:

Where there's 1 space between each letter, and 3 spaces between each word. (Typewriters didn't have a "bold" or "italicize" option.) The newer word processing programs have options to expand/condense the amount of space between each letter so you don't have to literally add extra spaces.


----------

